Tag: Blu-Ray

The Misfits is now available on Blu-Ray, though disappointingly no extras have been added. This great, if troubled movie deserves far better. Casey Broadwater reviewed it for Blu-Ray.com.

“The Misfits has the somewhat unsettling distinction of being the last film both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe ever completed …This lends a sadness and sense of weightiness to the film, which has come to be seen as strangely prophetic about the personal lives of its stars. And this makes sense; The Misfits is a deeply personal film, especially for Monroe. The platinum starlet’s then-husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller, wrote the script as a kind of present for his wife—who wanted to prove she could play more than just her usual dumb blond roles—but soon after the project started shooting, their marriage began to disintegrate. Miller worked on re-writes throughout production, and many of his additions were semi-biographical, hinting at various troubles in Monroe’s private life. The shoot itself was turbulent …Yet, despite the behind-the-scenes chaos, The Misfits is very nearly a masterpiece. Not quite, but nearly.”

Happily, Some Like It Hot has also been released, with all the extras from previous DVD editions.

“This was—if you’ll pardon the pun—ballsy stuff for its time, and Some Like It Hot, released without MPAA certification, presented a direct challenge to the soon-to-be-outmoded Hays Code … Some Like It Hot deserves to be listed alongside writer/director Billy Wilder’s other masterpieces—it’s as lasting and influential as Double Indemnity or Sunset Boulevard—and it’s widely regarded, for good reason, as one of the greatest American comedies in cinema history.”